Other than making quota, what metrics do you use to measure the performance of your sales teams and individual sales makers?

Recently in a LinkedIn Group discussion GregDownum asked the above question.  I posted the following Comment

Great wide-ranging contributions here!  The question asked “… what metrics do you use to measure the performance of your sales teams and individual sales makers?”  Have used notion that metrics are a bit higher level and abstract than the actual things to be measured within that metric.  Since these are “metrics in addition to win performance” they should reflect whether the team or individual has positioned themselves for on-going, regular success (not one-off or irregular).

In addition to those already suggested, have added following metrics/measures, some may overlap with those of other Contributors.   A manager would likely look at some on weekly basis, others on monthly or quarterly basis, some on unit level, some by individual sales person, and depending upon level in sales organization manager may also slice and dice by organization structure.  Some of these are self-explanatory; some may require a longer explanation.

·         Sales Funnel (Pipeline) Health

o   Sales Funnel by Stage - $ value of deals (could be both total and average); Average total age of deals; Average number of days a Deals have been in same Stage.

o   Velocity of deals overall and by Stage (with  “expected” velocity if established)

o   Funnel by Salesperson, showing $value by Stage

o   Funnel by Stage, showing total $value and % contribution by salesperson

o   Funnel by product/service offering, segmented by Stage

o   Funnel by Stage segmented by Sales Forecast Category

o   Funnel $Value Change (by Stage) over Previous Months

o   Stalled Deals by Stage – both in total $value and count

·         Sales Funnel (Pipeline) Performance

o   Total $value by Won/Lost/Cancelled Deals by month vs average deal velocity

·         Sales Process Compliance

o   Stage where deal initially entered into Funnel

These are ideal candidates for a Management Dashboard – charts and tables with drill down capability.  Oh, and one last caveat: all this assumes that a sales process is in place with well-defined management rules, and compliance is not an issue!!

One last thought on metrics and measures: what sales organizations look at should also change over time in response to their Change Management objectives.  Start simple, get to level of performance, then based on lessons learned and next plateau of Change introduce additional metrics/measures.  Repeat cycle a few times.  Then at maturity settle down on the key metrics/measures and eliminate others.